Great warm weather both days, perfect blue skies and of course the D37 crew had it organized to near perfection. The HARD WAY routes were testing this year with combination of difficult terrain and long mileage. Day 2 HARD WAY was over 260 miles for me and @TwoWheelsGood . Was very glad I've been working on my fitness level the last several months.

Some pics:

Eastside of Red Mountain (the nursery of all rocks in the Mojave)

Northside of the Freemonts heading to Husky Monument

Waiting for just a little more light to head up the Calico Steps

The D37 crew putting out ribbons on the Day 2 HARD WAY route were truly in another league on how well it was marked being the furthest out from anything ... on the way to Dumont Dunes

The sand out at Dumont was so soft and smooth, we were full speed/top gear across the whoops

We saw a couple FS Rangers in their UTV's out there, one of them doing a great job of keeping the Mad Max Thunderdome crowd from racing out of a trail on to the LAB2V tracks.

Rode the 1090 on the easy ways and had a blast, so much sand and whoops! Had I known I would have set up the suspension a bit different for the whoops. The climbs were fun, one steep downhill that got my attention, but all in all a great event!

Great weekend working the GPS table and riding with @bigtodd. Sorry, not a single pic taken all weekend...

Friday: Todd and I rolled out at about 8:45a after loading tracks at the GPS table. As we were one of the last riders to roll out, we had to move through a ton of slower riders. We rode together to the hard way split up Last Chance canyon. As Todd had done Last Chance many times and I had not, we split up here. The hard track from here to lunch was sandy, rocky and looonnggg. As I was solo and was going to work the GPS table in Barstow I decided to skip lunch, get gas and keep moving. I was looking forward to doing what I thought was going to be the fun singletrack ridges in the Fremonts but the tracks kept us in the rocks in the foothillls on the way to the Husky. I rolled by the Husky, saying to myself "Self, now you can just chill and mail it into Barstow." But it was another damn 40-50 miles or so to the hotel.

Worked the GPS table at the Ramada and had fun hazing the FNGs, getting them to buy us beerz

Saturday: Todd and I hit the freeway to get to Calico within 20 minutes of leaving the hotel vs 45-60' of dust and other riders. Worked out perfectly and we had first tracks through Manix, then bypassed the rocky hardway next to the freeway and shot to Baker to gas. From here we took all the hardways to Vegas. We were making excellent time, with a projected 2:3-3p finish in Vegas, but Todd caught a flat in the gravelly canyon jazz after lunch. Instead, we rolled in at about 4p with 250+ miles on the dial.

I'm planning to relocate to Boulder, CO early next summer so this was likely my last LAB2V for a long time. But if I were to do it again, I'd consider:

Leading a couple LAB2V first timers through the ride.

Riding sweep, to get a different perspective on the ride and have fun helping other riders across the 2 days.

Do the easy ways on the 990, especially with a group of competent, desert-experienced 9xx riders. Would be a blast to have 6-8x twins dicing it up with smaller bikes in the sand washes. In fact, I'd come back from CO for that ride...

If you're on the fence about doing this ride, get off and do it. It's an incredibly unique combination of miles, terrain, navigation skills, and not-racing a ride with 500+ other riders. Fookin' cool experience.

Had way too much fun!! Lost my phone, busted my radiator somehow and got lucky enough that MadJack mechanics had an extra!! Just plain having too much fun in the good weather...…..I bet snow/rain and ice are in my future!!